younger and have thinner credit files, you may be looking at
approval rates as low at 30%-40%, says Ms. Thomas.
Approval is also key from the facility perspective — especially if a
high percentage of your patients use a financing option. Just ask
Barbara Getlan, RN, BSN, the nurse administrator at Dulaney Eye
Institute in Towson, Md. "We do around 6,000 procedures (mostly
cataracts) per year," Ms. Getlan says. "And 25%-30% of our patients
use the healthcare credit card provider we've partnered with." It's a
good idea to get a general idea of what your own patient approval
rate is likely to be. Be specific. For example, if you're an orthopedic
center, ask: "What's the average approval rate for orthopedic proce-
dures? says Ms. Thomas.
Perhaps Tyler Crawford, the CEO of BHG Patient Lending, a finan-
cial company located in Syracuse, N.Y., that offers fixed-interest,
long-term loans (5 years) for patients with all types of credit, sums
up the importance of high patient approval best when he says: "If
your lender is only set up to approve a certain portion of your
patients, you're cutting off an entire population. And chances are,
they're your most credit-needy patients."
2. Credit limit.
You should be able to offer patients at least a
$3,000 credit line with whatever patient financing company you
choose; that's a standard starting point. "If you need to go above this
amount, some lenders will struggle," says Ms. Thomas, "because it's
not their sweet spot." You're going to want your average procedure
fee to correspond to the credit limit you can offer via patient financ-
ing. So if your procedure fees are well above this $3,000 benchmark,
you may have to look at a more niche type of vendor. For example,
there are vendors that only target patients with flawless credit and
offer credit lines of $40,000 and above. Again, when it comes to a
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